THEY SAID IT!: FDA COMMISSIONER: BIG PHARMA’S BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT ON DTC ADVERTISING “WOULD BE BETTER SPENT ON LOWERING DRUG PRICES”
Makary Highlights and Adds to Momentum “Across the Political Spectrum” to Hold Brand Name Drug Companies Accountable for Aggressive Marketing Practices That Increase Prescription Drug Spending
In case you missed it, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary wrote an op-ed, published in The New York Times over the weekend, detailing how Big Pharma’s staggering spending on advertising directly targeting consumers misleads American patients and increases prescription drug spending. Commissioner Makary also called for reforms and highlighted the bipartisan momentum to hold brand name drug companies accountable.
“As a physician, I’ve had patients walk into my office to ask about medicines they saw advertised. Rarely did the patient actually meet clinical criteria for the drug, but sometimes I would learn that they got it anyway from another source,” Makary wrote. “…The ads are also generally limited to expensive medications, not generic or biosimilar alternatives that are orders of magnitude less expensive. The United States leads the world in drug spending. A nonstop bombardment of ads encouraging medications over lifestyle changes is not a path to making America healthy again.”
Makary made the critical point that the staggering scale of Big Pharma’s spending on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising (nearly $14 billion in 2023 alone) increases prescription drug spending for Americans.
“Pharmaceutical companies may spend up to 20 to 25 percent of their budgets on advertising and marketing, according to some estimates,” he wrote. “A 2023 study in the Journal of Public Economics estimates that direct-to-consumer advertising drove about 31 percent of the rise in U.S. drug spending since 1997, when the F.D.A. relaxed ad restrictions.”
Earlier this year, The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing (CSRxP) released an analysis that found taxing or prohibiting DTC ads for the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. would result in increased federal tax revenue between $1.5 and $1.7 billion per year.
“Whether driven by patient protection concerns or fiscal responsibility principles, lawmakers across the political spectrum recognize that America’s unique position as one of only two countries allowing widespread prescription drug advertising demands serious reform,” Makary said. “Over the last several years, drug companies have increasingly gamed the system. Those days are over. We are taking drug marketing claims seriously and making our regulatory standards transparent. We are restoring honesty and accountability in drug advertising to protect patients and rebuild public trust. The billions of dollars drug companies spend on advertising would be better spent on lowering drug prices for American consumers.”
President Trump and the Administration have been calling for increased attention to the role Big Pharma’s DTC advertising plays in increasing prescription drug spending. In May, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for reining in Big Pharma’s DTC advertising of prescription drugs during an interview on “Special Report with Bret Baier” on The Fox News Channel.
“I met with pharmaceutical companies yesterday and had a very frank discussion with them on ways to limit TV commercials,” Kennedy said. “When you advertise a pharmaceutical product, it’s the government that is the one most likely going to pay for that product… you get a tax deduction to put that ad on TV, so that federal taxpayers are paying for the ad, then they’re paying for the product.”
“We’re the only nation in the world that allows that kind of advertising on TV,” Kennedy continued. “We’re a complete outlier. There’s one other country like New Zealand that allows limited [DTC advertising] but nothing like we do.”
The Administration and lawmakers, on both sides of the aisle, are right to be applying greater scrutiny to the pharmaceutical industry’s aggressive marketing practices in the U.S. and their impact on drug prices — and supporting solutions.
The bipartisan Drug-price Transparency for Consumers (DTC) Act, sponsored by U.S. Senators Grassley (R-IA) and Durbin (D-IL), and U.S. Representatives Taylor (R-OH-02) and Schakowsky (D-IL-09), is one solution Congress should advance. This bill would require Big Pharma to disclose the price of their products in advertising targeted directly to consumers. This would help shine a light on Big Pharma’s egregious pricing practices — arming policymakers and the public with greater transparency into the prices set by manufacturers on blockbuster brand name products, serving as a deterrent to price-gouging and empowering patients with useful information as they weigh the best treatment options for their individual health care needs.
Earlier this year, public opinion polling of U.S. voters, conducted by Fabrizio Ward on behalf of CSRxP, found:
- 86 percent of voters support requiring drug companies to list the price of their drugs in direct-to-consumer advertising.
- 90 percent of voters are concerned pharma companies spend billions of dollars per year on direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs, oftentimes writing off their ad spending for tax purposes.
Policymakers should capitalize on the overwhelmingly broad-based support from American voters, and bipartisan momentum among policymakers, to hold Big Pharma accountable for staggering spending on DTC advertising of high-priced brand name prescription drugs.
Read CSRxP’s full report on the taxpayer cost of Big Pharma’s DTC advertising HERE.
Read more on bipartisan, market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable HERE.
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